This invention concerns patients beds of adjustable height.
Hospitals and nursing homes devote increasing care to aging populations. In aging patients, dementia, confusion and behavior modified by medication, means that even simple operations such as transferring patients in and out of bed brings some risks. Injury from falling out of bed is not uncommon when non-elevating beds arm used. This risk is reduced by introducing beds which rise and fall so that the patient can sleep close to the floor. When the patient is ready to stand up, the bed is raised so that the patient can be seated in the bed with their feet on the floor. Further rising assists the patient to stand. Their bed movements must be controlled by staff who use bed movement in combination with chairs, trolleys, patient lifters and other ancillary equipment which avoids the need for the nursing staff to lift the patient. The bed movement at or close to floor level is crucial to cooperating with such equipment. The carriages of the equipment must underlie the bed frame during patient transfer and accordingly the bed frame thickness must be minised because to this thickness must be added the mattress thickness. Such mattresses commonly have a concave upper face to centralise the patient and to act as a Sanity barrier to falling out of bed.
Mattress contouring was introduced to replace the use of cot type restraints which breached operating protocols concerning the freedom of the patient.
The apparatus aspect of the invention provides a patients"" bed of adjustable height comprising a rise and fall bed frame supported between two ends, wherein the rise and fall of each end of the frame is controlled by a motor or an equivalent, wherein the mattress fay is capable of descending floor.
Patients may spend their sleeping hours at a beat equal to the thickness of the mattress plus the thickness of the bed fame.
The ends have frame guides which allow the frame to rise and fall parallel to the ground. The Same may have a mattress support capable of inclination to allow passage of the bed through a door.
The end may have vertical guides along which the ends of a cross bar rise and fall. The ends may support a motor mount, and a motor may drive a screw which engages a nut on the cross bar.
Preferably the motors are controlled for both synchronous rise and fall of the bed frame and a synchronous rise and fall so that the patient can be rested at a desired inclination to assist blood flow.
The motors may be supplied from a 24v dc power pack with means to vary the quantity of current proportionate to the load. The fame may be detachable from the ends for freight convenience.
In an alternative version there may be a motor at each corner of the bed. In such an arrangement the motors in each may work as pairs. The frame may be generally planar with a mattress tray. Conveniently, and in accordance with estabisied practice, the tray may be hinged between the ends so that the patients torso can be raised. This is achieved by a ram fixed at the frame beneath the mattress tray.